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John Buckman

Somewhere in California, France or the UK.

I run Magnatune.com, MoodMixes.com, iLicenseMusic.com and BookMooch.com, and I'm chairman of the board of the EFF.

Recent Activity

Pirates, Pop and the Catwalk - April and May New Releases

We’ve added a whole host of talented musicians and DJs to Magnatune during April and May. The wide variety of genres and top quality musicianship demonstrates that we only add high-end music to our downloads website. Here’s an overview of... Continue reading

Posted Jun 18, 2015 at Magnatune blog

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I'm in the New York Times magazine

The New York Times Magazine has a story appearing this Sunday, about ZPM espresso (a kickstarter-backed coffee machine company) and my attempt to buy them when their company ran out of cash. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/magazine/zpm-espresso-and-the-rage-of-the-jilted-crowdfunder.html Unfortunately, the link to me in the... Continue reading

Posted May 1, 2015 at Magnatune blog

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February 2015 releases

This month we added 21 new albums to the Magnatune library. Here is a selection of latest additions to our downloads website. This month’s new releases certainly provide an eclectic mix of music. From the melodic and haunting melodies in... Continue reading

Posted Apr 7, 2015 at Magnatune blog

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Overview of Magnatune releases in March 2015

If you're one for the deeper darker side of ambient, have a taste for melody driven indie folk or perhaps veer towards traditional instruments such as the lute or cello then be sure to check out our latest additions to... Continue reading

Posted Apr 6, 2015 at Magnatune blog

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Retina display support

Magnatune now automatically detects retina display devices (i.e., iPad, HD Android, and 4k monitors) and swaps in album art and artist photos at twice the resolution in those cases. I find the difference to be dramatic, especially with thumbnails of... Continue reading

Posted Nov 29, 2014 at Magnatune blog

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Webp image support

Parts of Magnatune are very image heavy, such as those that show many album covers or many artists. Starting today, if your browser supports it, these images are in Google's new WebP format, which (in my tests) results in images... Continue reading

Posted Nov 29, 2014 at Magnatune blog

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https support at Magnatune

I've just finished adding https support for Magnatune, which you can reach at https://magnatune.com. I've also confirmed that we are not vulnerable to the Heartbeat vulnerability. Note that graphics and audio files are not provided via https, but everything else... Continue reading

Posted Apr 23, 2014 at Magnatune blog

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2nd generation iPhone app released

We've just released a second generation Magnatune iPhone/iPad app: New features: This app has a visual approach to finding music, by sliding around album covers. A playlist is automatically kept up to date in the background, so you can queue... Continue reading

Posted Apr 10, 2014 at Magnatune blog

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SmartPhone control of Magnatune via Apptui

The iPhone/Android app called "Apptui" recently added strong support for Magnatune. I've been using (and testing) it these past few weeks, as their Magnatune support went into beta, and I'm pleased to say I'm finding it quite useful. It's free,... Continue reading

Posted Mar 23, 2014 at Magnatune blog

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How to write a press release

A pianist friend of mine wrote me today, asking: how do write press releases, john? I need to write one for the new album. the label director showed me his draft, and it looks boring. are there books about this?... Continue reading

Posted Mar 20, 2014 at Magnatune blog

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Credit cards without paypal

At Magnatune, we're now accepting all credit cards, without having to go through Paypal. We're using the Stripe credit card service, so that when you pay for your membership, you now can use your credit card directly, or use your... Continue reading

Posted Feb 23, 2014 at Magnatune blog

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New releases are back, no thanks to mushrooms

After a 7 week pause, we're once again releasing new albums! Why the pause? A perfect storm of bad timing occurred, when in the same few days I killed our main server, and got a bad case of mushroom poisoning:... Continue reading

Posted Dec 15, 2013 at Magnatune blog

16

Pinterest and Magnatune

I've added "Pin it!" buttons to the share pages on artists and albums. It looks like this: There's also a Pinterest Magnatune board now, at: http://www.pinterest.com/magnatune/ Many thanks to Marcel Aubron-Bülles, aka "The Tolkienist" for nudging me to do this,... Continue reading

Posted Nov 30, 2013 at Magnatune blog

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New: links to songs and tabs, IE11 fixed

I've added a new feature at Magnatune, to give you URLs that link directly to a song or a specific tab. This makes it much easier to blog about a specific song, since people who click on that link will... Continue reading

Posted Nov 25, 2013 at Magnatune blog

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Magnatune mostly working now

Hurrah! Magnatune is mostly back to working now. Here is a complete list of the things that I know are not working, which isn't very long: 1) podcasts are not available, and are not currently being built 2) audio streams... Continue reading

Posted Nov 7, 2013 at Magnatune blog

22

Magnatune unavailable

Sorry folks, a bad tech problem has occurred at Magnatune, and the service is currently unavailable. I'm working on fixing it just as soon as possible... update: the main server is down (operating system corrupted) and we'll be restoring from... Continue reading

Posted Nov 5, 2013 at Magnatune blog

18

ripcheck - detect defects in CD rips

I've written a program called "ripcheck" which runs a variety of tests on a WAV file, to see if there are potential mistakes that occurred in converting a CD to a WAV file. I've made this program available as free... Continue reading

Posted Sep 27, 2013 at Magnatune blog

24

Opus format audio files now available at Magnatune

I'm pleased to announce that all the music on Magnatune is now downloadable in the Opus audio format. What is Opus? Opus is a fairly new, open source, IETF standard audio format that provides extremely high audio quality. It has... Continue reading

Posted Sep 15, 2013 at Magnatune blog

8

Jump around in a song

By far the most requested feature on the new Magnatune site is the ability to jump around a song. I've now added that feature. When you play a song in an album, you'll see the time elapsed displayed in this... Continue reading

Posted Sep 8, 2013 at Magnatune blog

5

New feature: download playlists for external audio players

For those of you who want to stream our music using your own audio player (i.e., winamp, vlc, mplayer) I've now added download links to playlists in various formats, both for free and members. You'll find them about 2/3rds down... Continue reading

Posted Sep 5, 2013 at Magnatune blog

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New Lofi option, if you have slow internet

I've added a "lofi" option for those of you with a slow internet connection or otherwise unreliable bandwidth. To enable it, on any album page at Magnatune, look below the bio text and you'll see these options: click on the... Continue reading

Posted Sep 5, 2013 at Magnatune blog

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OGG file streaming for browsers that support it

Magnatune now automatically streams "ogg" file format audio to you, when you browse the magnatune web site, if your web browser supports it (it's the default now for Firefox). The main advantages of this are: 1) about 1/3rd less bandwidth... Continue reading

Posted Sep 5, 2013 at Magnatune blog

5

Improvements and bug fixes

As expected, lots of people have emailed us with their thoughts, problems and suggestions on the rewritten Magnatune web site. We haven't replied to all the email yet, because we wanted to first provide solutions. So... below is a list... Continue reading

Posted Aug 22, 2013 at Magnatune blog

11

New features: volume, repeat, autoplay

Since forever, people have been emailing me to ask for these features in the Magnatune audio player: 1) the ability to set the volume level on Magnatune, and have it stick 2) the ability to turn off auto-play 3) the... Continue reading

Posted Aug 22, 2013 at Magnatune blog

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The history behind the blue imp

The blue imp character on the home page seems be a magnet for strong opinions, which range from "I hate it" and "At first I hated it, but now I've grown to like it", "I don't mind him" to "He's... Continue reading

Posted Aug 22, 2013 at Magnatune blog

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